


Promises Promises

by houndsoflove



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-29
Updated: 2013-01-29
Packaged: 2017-11-27 10:35:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/660989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/houndsoflove/pseuds/houndsoflove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ori wants adventure. Ficlet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promises Promises

**Author's Note:**

> Just something short about my favourite dwarf brothers. :)

‘Where are you going?’

Ori shrank against the wall, into the shadows.

Dori pulled his nightclothes tighter around himself and sighed deeply. ‘I can see you there,’ he said sternly. ‘Where are you going?’

Ori moved away from the wall, scuffing the toes of his boots across the floor. ‘Fresh air,’ he mumbled.

‘Do you need your knapsack and woollies when you step outside?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do not get clever with me, you young fool!’ exploded Dori. ‘I know what you’re up to!’

Ori shrank in on himself, startled. His eyes were as round as dinner plates.

Dori thrust out a scrap of paper. There was a smudgy scrawl across it.

> _Ori; I will be gone for some time. A quest with Oakenshield. Don’t follow. Nori._

‘I found it under your pillow,’ said Dori. The note trembled minutely in his grip. ‘You can’t go gallivanting off after him at every opportunity! This is the tenth time—’

‘Fourteenth,’ corrected Ori mildly.

‘ _Don’t_ interrupt!’ Dori shook his head. He began to pace the room. ‘You’re too young. You don’t know the world like I do.’

‘Nori would look after me,’ said Ori hopefully.

Dori let out a shout of derisive laughter. ‘I fancy you’d be safer in the care of a goblin!’

‘I just want to see what’s out there.’

‘What?’

‘I want to go—’

‘Speak up, for goodness’ sake!’

‘I want to go on an adventure!’ cried Ori in a quavering voice. He wrung his scarf roughly and blinked the sting out of his eyes before his brother saw.

‘You can’t,’ said Dori at last, helplessly.

‘ _Please_.’

‘Ori,’ Dori began, approaching him slowly and resting a weary hand upon his shoulder, ‘you’re young and excitable. The world is a wondrous place when youth blinds you to its ills. But there are things I’ve seen that I would not wish upon your eyes. Terrible, terrible things. Wait until you’re older, and you’ll realise what folly this is. Here is where you belong. If you go now you could be lost forever, and because my heart will go with you, I, too, will be lost.’

Ori bowed his head. A small sniffle came from within the folds of his long scarf.

Dori smiled gently. ‘Come, let’s go back to bed. The hour is late. You’ll think with a clearer head tomorrow.’

Ori nodded silently, and let his knapsack fall to the floor.

***

Morning sparkled gaily over the distant hills.

‘ _A thousand curses upon that blasted—obstinate—dung-headed—_ ’

Dori hurled the pillows arranged in a dwarf-shaped mound off of Ori’s empty bed. Feathers tumbled through the air like snow. ‘And the good sheets, too!’ he lamented, hauling up the makeshift rope dangling from the open window.

A crumpled note – in a much neater hand – came to rest on the floor.

> _Dearest Dori; I thought about what you said, but Nori promised dragons. Don’t follow me. Love, Ori._


End file.
